


close your eyes and wade into the quiet of the stream

by Eat_Your_Heart_Out



Series: I'll Use You as a Makeshift Gauge [2]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Blood and Violence, Cannibalism, Domestic Bliss, Hannibal Lecter is a Cannibal, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, M/M, Minor Character Death, ambush therapy, and so is will, casual mentions of cannibalism, or as domestic as a pair of cannibals still technically on the run can be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:29:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28103211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eat_Your_Heart_Out/pseuds/Eat_Your_Heart_Out
Summary: Five years after the apparent drowning death of an American serial killer and an FBI agent, Will Beaumont is getting ready for his fourth anniversary in the Swiss countryside.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Series: I'll Use You as a Makeshift Gauge [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2058828
Comments: 1
Kudos: 38





	close your eyes and wade into the quiet of the stream

**Author's Note:**

> An unintended sequel, but I couldn't help feeling like Hannibal and Will deserved a soft ending, just a little.

Will misses his dogs. That’s not to say he doesn’t have dogs now- Hannibal can be incredibly indulgent and they are currently debating getting a sixth- but it  _ is  _ to say that leaving his first pack was maybe the hardest thing he had ever done. He misses them often and terribly, but his new pack has him wrapped around their paws too. Conan, a purebred Irish Wolfhound that Hannibal had gotten for his birthday in their first year in Switzerland, was their first and the other four followed soon after- Fromage, the old man of the pack, Doe, a dainty little thing Will had found freezing in a snow drift, Beau, an ornery beast that had found them instead of the other way around, and Meskius, an oversized puppy that Hannibal had named by accident on a tirade about the dog's obviously mixed parentage. They are all strays and all mutts though and Will loves them with his whole heart. 

The whole pack is brilliant- they took to Will and his commands like ducks to water, which is incredibly lucky because the farm Hannibal had found them is large and full of ways for unwary dogs to get themselves into trouble. They move together for the most part and are entirely unwilling to leave his side, which is almost always a good thing. 

_ Almost _ because sometimes when he is planning a quiet morning away, they recognize his routine and pile into his truck eagerly, panting with excitement at the thought of going somewhere new. Of course, Will isn’t going to kick them out, but he hadn’t planned on taking them either. 

Emilia texted him last night about her decrepit barn doors and he had agreed to help her. It’s midmorning already and he has been moving lazily, steadily forward, taking a moment to stop and write Hannibal a note. He has the strangest feeling that he won’t be back by midafternoon when the other man will trudge in, worn out by unimaginative grad students and Will doesn’t want him to worry. 

The drive to Emilia’s farm isn’t far, really just long enough for the dogs to get a nice breath of fresh air. She’s standing in the front yard when he gets there, mug in hand and bare toes curling in the grass. He cuts the engine and it sputters for a moment, coughing and wheezing into silence. Hannibal tried to get him to buy a better one exactly once, but Will said it comforted him and Hannibal conceded the point as he does most things in their domestic life. 

Will jumps out of the truck and the pack follows, dispersing into the yard to sniff out any changes made in the last two days. Emmie bounces on her feet, the mug in her hand the only thing keeping her from launching herself at him. Clearly Etienne, Emmie’s toddler, isn’t home, because nothing would have stopped  _ him _ from rocketing out of the house straight for Wills legs as he’s done on every visit since he could walk. 

Carefully, to avoid accidentally spilling her coffee, Will leans in to hug the young woman. She buries her head in her chest and murmurs in French, “I missed you.”

“I just brought you dinner on Wednesday,  _ ma crotte _ ,” he replies. His French had been rusty and awkward when they first moved to Neuchatel, but it flowed easily now, especially with how much time he spends with his mostly French speaking neighbors. His Cajun accent is even mostly gone now and Hannibal swears he sounds like a native speaker to a casual listener. 

“Well, yes, but I still missed you!” she says petulantly and Will can’t help but chuckle a little. That’s Emmie, so damn loud about every little emotion. Only the little ones, though. She’s taught little Etienne to refer to Will as ‘ _ Pepe Will _ ’, but shuts down every time she herself slips up and calls him  _ Papa _ . He’s fine with that, since he doesn’t even know how to handle it. It's just that he  _ likes it _ , he likes it  _ so much _ but-

Hannibal tried to give him a child once, years ago, and it hadn't worked because Will hadn't  _ wanted  _ a child then. 

Will wants love above all else. Hannibal wants  _ understanding  _ and, because he hadn't known Will as well at the time, he'd conflated their similar desires and hit upon the idea of making a family together. He orchestrated Abigail's arrival into their lives and then her abrupt departure, turning them all into actors in the macabre play that Hannibal imagined domestic life to be. Will has since set him straight.

He has also forgiven Hannibal for his ignorance, mostly. It's been ten years and they both understand each other better now. Will also understands how ill-fitting Abigail would have been in his life- in  _ any  _ life without her father. Try as she might to convince them, poor little Abigail would never have been happy in a world where Garret Jacob Hobbs wasn't standing over her shoulder. Ultimately, her death was merciful.

Emilia is different, though.  _ Will  _ met her by accident and decided he liked her,  _ he  _ is the one who decided to offer his handyman services to her,  _ he  _ is the one who offered to babysit her son for the first time. The choice to bring her into his- into  _ their  _ lives was entirely Will’s and so she has stuck around as a kind, comforting constant. Hannibal has accepted her presence easily enough, though his natural aloofness means that he mostly just trusts whatever Will says about her which makes him warm whenever he thinks about it too closely. 

Emmie leans back to look up at him after a moment, chewing on her lip worriedly. "About the barn doors," she says, "I kind of lied to you."

Will lets her go and raises a single eyebrow, content to wait until she tells him.  _ She  _ tries to wait  _ him  _ out, which is hilarious for about five seconds until she starts to vibrate and finally blurts out, "I didn't know how to say it over text! He just-!" Doe's sonorous, growling bark rolls over the space between them and cuts her off. The pack has roamed over to the barn and are ranged around the doors, hackles up and growling. Emmie sighs. "Come and see."

She leads Will to the barn. It's old, made of sturdy wood and unpainted, or if it was painted, whatever color had been there had worn off so long ago that there isn't even a trace of it now. The barn’s apparent age had ensured that Will didn't think twice when Emmie texted him about the doors- they've squeaked relentlessly the whole three years he's known her and do so loudly now when she throws them open. The barn is small, meant for the storage of small portions of hay and a tractor, if you're very careful about maneuvering it. The hay that was there a week ago has been cleared to make space for an unconscious man who is bleeding sluggishly from a fresh head wound. It's too fresh to have been there since she texted Will yesterday and he looks at her in askance. She shrugs uncomfortably. "I strangled him into unconsciousness when I found him last night, but he started to come around this morning. I couldn't have that."

Will inches closer and crouches near him, looking closely at his face. He looks strangely like Etienne around the nose and the eyes. "Who is he?" he asks. 

"Etiene's uncle. His father, Paul, isn't the best of men, but I knew who he was when I chose to go through with the pregnancy. I told him I didn't want my baby to have anything to do with his family and he was fine with it because he doesn't want to be a father anyway. _Jean_ here," she says, distaste dripping from his name, "Paul’s brother, didn't believe me. He told anyone who would listen that I was stealing an heir and when people stopped listening, he got violent. Paul paid my way to Switzerland just before I was due, bought me this nice little place in the countryside and promised not to talk to me again. Jean made no such promise, though, so I've kept an eye out for him. My door was unlocked when I came home from dropping Etienne off yesterday." 

Will stays crouched, eyeing Jean and painting a new picture of pre-Etienne Emilia in his head. What drove her to Paul and Jean and then to leave them? Who was she, that she was okay with whatever their family was part of? Even now with her would-be murderer laying on the ground in front of them, she seems more nervous about Will's reaction than the inevitable bloodshed. "You seem to have him handled," he says carefully. 

"If he were the kind of man I could just call the police on, then  _ yes,  _ I would!" she shouts, the frustration in her voice palpable. Will looks back to find her standing at his shoulder now, her hands shaking with rage, the dark skin of her cheeks flushed even darker. "If I have him arrested, his family will just bail him out and Paul will let him run wild again! My son and I are not safe while he's alive."

He breathes out slowly through his nose and stands up. Emmie's eyes are watery, but Will knows she's an angry crier and he can feel it coming off her in waves. She is furious that this piece of her old life has trespassed on her new one, has violated it, has reminded her that the past has teeth. "What would you like me to do, Emilia?"

"You and  _ Monsieur  _ have always said I could call you if I ever needed anything. I can't do this alone,  _ Papa _ ." Emmie's eyes don't waver from Will's, her spine stays straight, her hands even stop shaking momentarily. She is out of practice with violence, but she’s not scared. 

A moan comes from behind Will; Jean is beginning to come around. There is no time to waste with uncertainty. Will says, "Do you want to see this? It might be the ugliest thing in the world."

Cold fingers wrap around his wrist. "I can't turn away from a sin I asked you to commit. I am not worthy of unconditional love if I can't return the same." Emmie's English accent is slow and meandering, styled after Will's own faded Cajun one partly because, like a child, she thinks it's funny to imitate him, but also because she says she feels strangely exposed outside of her mother tongue and Will's voice comforts her even if it's just the shape of it coming out of her mouth. That girl has a remarkable talent for cracking his chest open, filling his lungs with emotion or water, he's not sure which. 

What kind of life has Emilia led that she finds Will, who can feel hunger and malcontent rolling off him like a sick dog,  _ comforting _ ?

Instead of answering her directly, Will plants his foot in the middle of Jean's back and buries his hand in the dark hair on the back of his head, yanking it up roughly. There is a switchblade in his pocket, a lovely hand carved treasure Hannibal had come home with last year that Will doesn't go anywhere without. He imagines it has a taste for blood by now, so he slides his sleeve down over his palm before pulling the knife out to shield his hand from the blade when it inevitably slips. He glances up to Emmie briefly. "Grab that bucket and angle it under his neck. This is going to be messy."

* * *

The kitchen of Hannibal and Will’s farmhouse was retrofitted with with a glass wall whose panels could be opened before they even moved in for two reasons: it’s west facing and Hannibal likes the light of the setting sun gilding his food preparation and human meat smells different when it cooks, its unsettling, rotten scent lingering in the corners of rooms and on the upholstery. Will wonders how Hannibal’s old Baltimore townhouse didn’t reek with it. 

It’s those panels Will has thrown open now while a carefully tied roast broils in the oven. Outside of two rushed phone calls in the early hours of the morning, Will hasn’t seen Hannibal in nearly three days. After slitting Jean’s throat on Friday, Emmie had helped Will string the man up by his ankles in her barn to bleed him. Thankfully, it wasn’t warm enough yet for the smell of old meat to have permeated the air by the time Will decided the body was ready to be cut down. Emilia had little to say about it, only that she was glad she went vegetarian last year. There’s vegetarian lasagna cooling on the counter, kept a careful distance from all of the food preparation for Hannibal and Will’s dinner. He would bring it to her tomorrow, a peace offering and an opportunity to see where they stand now.

He’s working on shredding a mountain of cheese for baked macaroni- Hannibal refuses to buy the pre-shredded stuff- when the door clicks open and the pack goes into an excited frenzy. They haven’t been home in three days either and they missed Hannibal almost as much as Will did. 

Hannibal’s booming laugh, the genuinely happy one, sounds in the entryway where Will is sure he is being accosted. Clicking nails and laughter and short, excited yips travel through the front of the house. Will can see Hannibal’s pattern in his mind’s eye- shoes in the front hall, outer coat hung in the hall closet, suit jacket and briefcase left in the study, a check to make sure the water bowls for the pack are reasonably full on the back deck and then, finally, off to find Will, wherever he was entrenched for the day. Hannibal sniffs him out immediately, but he stands on the threshold of the kitchen and the pack surges around him. They are not allowed in the kitchen and they know it, so they urge the object of their attention back into the hallway where they can have him all to themselves and Hannibal takes it good naturedly. 

Will watches for a moment, distracted from the cheese in his hands and the pasta coming to a boil and the meat in the oven and the time of day. Hannibal’s smile is so bright, so content, that Will can’t help but sink into the feeling himself. He gives two short whistles and the dogs subside quickly and reluctantly, dispersing to sulk elsewhere. Hannibal extricates himself from them finally and just barely saves himself from stumbling- this is the one thing in which he is not graceful. The pack is just a bit too exuberant for him to fully anticipate and redirect the way he does everything else in life and Will can rely on Hannibal’s daily stumble over Meskius’ too-long legs to remind him that the other man is just as human as he is.

" _ I'm _ making dinner tonight. Happy anniversary," he says simply. 

Hannibal's nostrils flare delicately and his broad mouth curls into a secret, satisfied smile. "I do not recognize the scent."

"You wouldn't," Will says and he goes back to shredding cheese. He ignores the tiny, almost imperceptible changes in Hannibal- the way he shifts his weight onto the balls of his feet, the slight widening and dilating of his eyes, the way his hands curl into claws. His breath blows out of his nose sharply and he drags another breath in, an obscenely pleased expression on his face. Despite his fully awakened appetite, Will doesn't often hunt alone and Hannibal savors those times when he does, treating every meal that comes of it like holy sacrament. 

"My darling monster," he purrs, "what have you dragged home this time?"

Will bares his teeth briefly and, done with the cheese, moves to strain the water from the macaroni and prepare the pan it will bake in. He can feel Hannibal's eyes on him, curious and half feral with delight, but he will not look up. Will himself is also vibrating with excitement, with satisfaction, so much so that it's almost  _ too _ much. Looking into Hannibal's depthless brown eyes will be entirely too much for him right now, no matter how much he adores their color. "A different kind of monster, gift-wrapped in Emmie’s barn. She called me for  _ moral support _ , but I didn't let her have the chance-" 

Will cuts himself off abruptly and sets the colander down harder than he'd meant to, breathing slowly through his nose. He hadn't let himself think about it when he was still at Emmie's house, but why  _ didn't _ he let her hold the knife? Why had he taken that choice from her without hesitation? The answer isn't something he wants to think of so instead he says, "She wasn't surprised when I strung him up to bleed him. She  _ helped _ ."

"The barest hints of understanding have been sparking in her eyes for months now," Hannibal says carefully.

"And you didn't think to do anything to dissuade that understanding?"

"I felt it would have been a disservice to her. Emilia is far from unintelligent and we do little to hide that we do not simply go to the grocery store for our meat."

He begins to assemble the macaroni methodically for something to do with his shaking hands. Hannibal always does this, always pokes at things he shouldn't and blames it on bored curiosity. "You're getting complacent, Hannibal. I'm not sure if I like it." 

"If the loving doesn't make you fat and happy, is it really love at all?" Hannibal says, smiling softly. Will is so struck by him then- his sloe eyes, the animal satisfaction in the curve of his broad mouth,the way his hair falls just so- that he is momentarily disgusted by the tenderness he feels. It threatens to pull him under the tide of it, to drown him in milk and honey. This is a love marked by water, by drowning dreams and quiet streams and baptisms in the dark. 

He thinks of the way the waterfall of blood from Jean's neck still managed to spatter Emilia's face and the way she hadn't flinched at all but bared her teeth in a sharp-edged smile. He thinks of how baptisms only have power when they are by choice. 

He blinks slowly, times his breath to the beats of his heart- in for four, out for four- and says, “Still, she’s only twenty-four. She’s so young, and her son-” 

“Emilia is a bright young woman who is perfectly capable of making her own decisions. And,” he adds, that soft look turning sly, “someone who clearly has no problem calling a father figure when she is in over her head. Incredibly responsible, if you ask me.” 

“I’m no one’s father.” 

“Not officially, no,” Hannibal agrees easily. “I thought you were done sabotaging your own happiness,  _ mano sirduk _ . We both know that a  _ sixth  _ dog is not what you really want.” 

God, why do they always have to do this? Why can’t Hannibal come home after a long day of teaching classes and simply accept the new meat in their fridge? What can’t things be  _ easy _ ?

_ Because _ , he thinks as he slides the dish of macaroni in the oven and slides a critical eye over the roast,  _ ease is not native to men like us, to love like this. It’s not a language we speak. _

“I was hoping to avoid all of this. I wanted a nice anniversary dinner, not a therapy session,” is all he says when he rises from the oven. 

Hannibal gives an amused nod of acknowledgement “And this anniversary is shaping up to be truly splendid, but you should know by now that mealtimes with me often double as both.”

Will sighs. “I know. It’s just- I’m made for pack living, Hannibal. It’s just been you and the dogs for a long time and I… I miss other people. I’m sorry.”

“Do not be sorry,” he says sharply. He reaches across the counter to take Will’s hand, disrupting its repetitive, reflexive pinching and the skin of the opposite wrist. “If either of us is at fault, it’s me. I confess to giving into a rather selfish, draconic urge to keep you to myself these past years when obviously I should not have. I want you to remember that your will is what keeps the two of us going in this life- you need only to speak your desire to me and I will make it so.” 

Will thinks of Abigail’s accusatory eyes watching him as they slipped out of consciousness together that last time. She had been angry then, bleeding out on another kitchen floor, but in the perfect, bloodless clarity of his empathy, he understood her anger so well that it felt like his own. Maybe it was, in a way. Abigail was so much more furious with Will for attempting to sell Hannibal out than she was with Hannibal for slicing her pretty little scar open again. Garret Jacob Hobbs, her yardstick for the world, had shown her with absolute certainty that death is better than disloyalty. He looks down at their joined hands. “The last time you tried to give me a daughter,” he says slowly, “you killed her the moment I displeased you.” 

The mirth is gone in an instant, replaced with something that looks startlingly like regret. “It was a fit of pique. I am much less prone to crimes of passion these days, now that I have better outlets.”

Will glances over to the lasagna again and thinks about what he will say to Emilia, how she will react. Was the taste of blood in her mouth finally too much? He twists his hand around so that is Will reeling Hannibal in over the counter instead of Hannibal grounding Will. He can tell that he immediately has his lover's full attention, can feel the weight of that stunning mind focused entirely on him. “I think you were right earlier about love-it makes us all prey animals. All lovers are both the lambs standing trustingly under a farmer’s captive bolt gun and the farmer holding it. Make no mistake, though-  _ I _ am the farmer this time and  _ you  _ are the lamb.” 

Hannibal’s fingers twitch in Will’s grasp and his eyes glitter, childlike glee lighting the hunger-sharp planes of his cheeks. “I can think of nowhere better to be than under your gun, Will. No one threatens quite as beautifully as you."

The silence in the kitchen is deafening, endless, and when Hannibal tilts his head just so and his eyes catch the dying light, Will can feel himself falling away. His lungs are tingling like he has held his breath too long, but he thinks if he inhales now, the violent rush of Hannibal's tenderness will drown him. Hannibal’s nostrils flare and his eyes skip to the stove and back. "I think the roast is about to burn."

Will breathes in. He's okay with drowning. 


End file.
